1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a configuration recognizing system, configuration recognizing method, and a configuration recognizing program for recognizing a component such as a unit mounted to various devices such as server systems on the device side without intervention of electric connections.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although units such as CPUs and memories are mounted to various server systems such as a communication server, database server, and file server, each unit includes unique information such as a unit ID and the unique information is displayed with a pattern embedded in a unit substrate. When each unit is mounted to a case and electric connection is established, the unique information thereof is recognized by a system control mechanism (firmware). If the unit substrates increase and exceed the initial expectation at the time of manufacturing, the unit ID set for each unit must be changed and the unit substrates may be forced to be altered correspondingly.
Since the memory capacity of the unit often cannot be recognized unless supplying electric power (powering on) to the system substrate and the determination cannot be made for the memory configuration violation and the number of licenses corresponding to the memory configuration before supplying electric power, the maintenance and replacement operations are troublesome.
With regard to the management of the component such as a unit in various devices, prior patent documents are listed as follows.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 1999-272741
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 1992-291452
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 1995-160768
Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-94300
The patent Document 1(Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 1999-272741) discloses a print substrate managing method for performing batch management of data of a manufacturing process with a center apparatus and, in this management method, the batch management of process information such as adjustment data and repair data is performed for each substrate. Since the adjustment data and management data of the print substrate built into the apparatus has been managed in each process of the manufacturing process, such as a substrate adjustment process, an assembly process, and a general process or in a manufacturing department, this merely increases availability of data by performing the batch management of the manufacturing process data with the center apparatus. That is, the mounting apparatus does not recognize the substrate mounted thereto.
The patent document 2 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 1992-291452) discloses a product configuration management system that assists an analysis of a failure generated after product shipment with barcode labels attached to components of the product. By adding serial numbers to the components of the product with the barcode labels to register in a database of the components the correlation, etc. between the serial numbers and the components and the delivery destination of the product, it is merely attempted to check a failure history only by reading the barcodes of the components and to utilize the history in a failure diagnosis. That is, the components are not recognized by the device to which the components are mounted.
The Patent document 3 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 1995-160768) merely discloses a product history management system for using an appropriate part in a mounting work and an on-site maintenance operation of an electronic automatic exchange. This management system merely manages information through barcodes to eliminate an information difference generated between the site and the manufacturer.
The patent document 4 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-94300) discloses a lot management system and controlling method thereof, etc. The system and method merely collect lot number information added to each part configuring a unit through character recognition and store lot numbers and part information, etc., corresponding to the lot numbers, which is provided from the manufacturer, to perform quality management in conjunction with the quality information, etc. corresponding to the lot numbers. The system and method do not allow a device to recognize a component mounted to the device to perform a process corresponding to the component.